Quotulatiousness

November 28, 2011

Vikings fall short (again) against the Atlanta Falcons

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:27

Yesterday’s game had some great work by Percy Harvin, fewer rookie mistakes from Christian Ponder, and random guys pulled in off the street playing in the Vikings’ secondary. Okay, that last part isn’t quite true, but when you’re playing your fourth-best corner against the opponent’s number one receiver (at least, until he leaves the game with a shoulder injury), and your third-best safety (until he leaves the game with a hamstring pull), it’s going to be a long, long day for the defence.

In traditional Viking style, Harvin entered the record books, but not in a good way: his 104-yard kick return is almost certainly the longest in NFL history that didn’t conclude with a touchdown.

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November 21, 2011

Vikings fail to impress in loss to Raiders

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:34

After Sunday’s mistake-filled outing against the Oakland Raiders, Minnesota sits at the bottom of the NFC North division with a sad 2-8 record. On top of the loss, Adrian Peterson was injured in the second quarter and did not return to the game.

Tom Pelissero:

If the season ended today, that’d merit a top-four pick in April’s NFL Draft. Only Indianapolis (0-10), Carolina (2-8) and St. Louis (2-8) have matched the Vikings in the loss column, and at least the Colts have a valid excuse.

No one circumstance can bear the blame for penalties, turnovers and missed opportunities that continue to haunt the Vikings week after week — save for the reality of a second consecutive lost season that has eviscerated any sense of urgency in the locker room.

“It’s a difference from last year, just being in there,” receiver Percy Harvin said. “Everybody has a high spirit. We were just talking about it before this game. One of the coaches pulled me to the side and was like, ‘This doesn’t feel like a losing team.'”

No, but they’re playing like one. Not always for 60 minutes, but for stretches long enough to cripple them — even against a Raiders team that hemorrhaged 117 yards on 12 penalties, had a field goal blocked and fumbled when it was trying to run out the clock.

Christian Ponder’s 37-yard strike to Visanthe Shiancoe up the seam set up a 1-yard touchdown throw to Kyle Rudolph on the next play, pulling the Vikings to within six with 5:08 to go. The defense forced a punt but the offense stalled, with Tyvon Branch breaking up Ponder’s out-breaking throw for Harvin on fourth-and-8.

“We just kept making mistakes, especially me,” said Ponder, who threw three interceptions. “I kept making mistakes, kept turning the ball over. You can’t win games that way. I’ve got a lot of learning to do.”

Jim Souhan points out that losing isn’t all bad:

There were times during the 2009 season you could have argued that the Vikings were the best team in football. Today, they are contending to become the worst.

Well before they lost to Oakland, the Vikings, a dubious stew of uninspired coaching and overrated talent, had blown their chance to contend. Beating the Raiders would have been like putting Neosporin on a broken tibia.

When you’re as bad as the Vikings have been, winning the odd game accomplishes nothing.

Losing offers hope.

The Vikings now have a realistic chance of landing the second pick in the 2012 NFL draft.

That should be their goal. The way they played for most of Sunday’s game, they should be up to the task.

November 16, 2011

The (sad) tale of the tape

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:36

Tom Pelissero has the task of going through the tape of Monday night’s game against the Packers, doing the stats and assessing the play of the team. It’s not a happy job:

Here’s the tale of the tape from the Minnesota Vikings’ 45-7 loss to the Green Bay Packers, with grades on a scale of 0 to 5 in parentheses:

Quarterbacks (1)

Packers DC Dom Capers pulled out all the stops to chase and confuse QB Christian Ponder (62 snaps), who looked truly flustered at times for the first time in his young career. Using 11 different combinations of blitzers and mixing man and zone coverage behind them, Capers sent 28 patterns (rushes involving inside linebackers or defensive backs) in Ponder’s 36 dropbacks (77.8%), including the last nine in a row despite leading by 30-plus. MLB Desmond Bishop blitzed most frequently (13 times), followed by CB Charles Woodson (seven), BLB A.J. Hawk (seven), subpackage CB Jarrett Bush (six), FS Morgan Burnett (three) and CB Tramon Williams (one). The result was three sacks, 17 total QB pressures, three passes batted at the line and a 16-of-34 passing line (47.1%) that could have been worse if Ponder hadn’t stuck several tough throws into traffic. A flat-footed strike up the seam for 33 on third-and-4 was as good as it got. Ponder made one terrible decision, turning a flea-flicker into an interception for Williams even though the Packers had the right defense to defend it. Woodson missed chances for two more interceptions — one on a late crossing throw, the other when two players collided in pattern. A fumble caused by LOLB Clay Matthews’ sack was recovered by a teammate. Ponder scrambled twice for 17 yards. It seemed like Capers was in the Vikings huddle with the way the Packers kept taking away bootlegs, screens and other manufactured plays. One of Ponder’s three “explosive” completions and 38 of his 190 passing yards (20%) came on the final drive, after Green Bay had pulled several starters. The rookie has long way to go, but don’t they all? Joe Webb (three) took a counter option for 6 yards on his lone snap under center and played two snaps at receiver, catching his first NFL pass for 9 yards on a long drag against Woodson on third-and-18.

The rest of the article is just as depressing as this. The highest mark he hands out is a bare (2) to the defensive line. The receivers and the defensive backs each got half a mark, which may be too generous. You may have the best running back in the NFL (and I think they do), but if you can’t pass and you can’t stop your opponent from passing, it is not going to make enough of a difference.

November 15, 2011

Vikings show no life in loss to Packers

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

This was an ugly game. It will turn up on Wikipedia as the definitive video illustration for both “ugly” and “futile”. Unlike the last match-up between the Vikings and Packers at the Metrodome, there are no positives to dwell on: it was an old-fashioned butt-whipping. It was so bad that the Vikings looked pathetic against the Green Bay backups. According to a tweet from Jeremy Fowler, this is the Vikings’ worst loss since “a 51-7 clubbing by San Francisco on Dec. 8, 1984”.

For next week’s game, the Vikings are going to be starting the press corps in their secondary: injuries against Green Bay included cornerback Antoine Winfield with a fractured clavicle (probably ending his season), safety Husain Abdullah with a concussion (his second of the season), and cornerback Cedric Griffin just being himself (playing on two reconstructed knees). What would have been even more depressing for Viking fans — if the sportscasters had bothered to mention it — was quarterback Christian Ponder heading to the locker room for X-rays (negative, thank goodness).

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November 7, 2011

Occupy Winter Park!

Filed under: Business, Football, Government, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:35

Minnesota is blessed with some particularly colourful legislators, but all of them must take second place to State Representative Phyllis Kahn. She has a long history of, shall we say, “imaginative” legislative proposals, and this one is a doozy:

Throw in one more idea for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium: Have the public buy shares in the team, enabling them to own a piece of the Vikings and help finance a stadium.

The community ownership idea has been floated before but Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, said Monday she would introduce legislation to require Gov. Mark Dayton and the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission to work with the National Football League to make it happen. The commission owns the downtown Minneapolis Metrodome, the team’s home for nearly 30 years.

“Dayton asked for all ideas to be put on the table and that’s exactly what I’m doing here,” said Kahn. “No single idea [for funding a new stadium] has gained enough traction to pass the Legislature.”

The Vikings are hoping to get a new stadium built, and the state legislature has been doing what they can to kick the issue down the road every time it’s come up. I don’t have a say in the matter, as I’m not located in Minnesota and I’d probably still cheer for the team even if it moved elsewhere (though it would be a sad thing to see it move after half a century in Minnesota).

In general, I don’t think governments should build stadiums for professional sports teams, as it’s using tax money to subsidize private profits. If a new stadium is going to generate a profit, the team’s ownership should bear the costs themselves. The fact that they generally don’t — mostly because politicians don’t want to deal with angry sports fans after the team leaves town — doesn’t make it right.

However, Rep. Kahn’s proposal won’t fly because the NFL itself forbids public ownership of teams (the grandfathered-in exception being the Green Bay Packers). What’s even more interesting about her plan is that the proceeds of selling shares in the team would be put directly towards building a new stadium:

The funds from selling stock in the Vikings, said Kahn, could go toward helping the team build a new stadium. She added that, under her plan, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and his family could retain a 30 percent controlling interest in the team.

So the Wilfs will be allowed to retain a minority share, but wouldn’t be compensated for the proportion of the stock that was being sold? Isn’t that just expropriation? I didn’t realize the DFL was a modern-day successor to Mussolini’s Fascist Party.

October 31, 2011

Vikings hang on to defeat Panthers at home, 24-21

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:34

For what was billed as a team that couldn’t stop the run, Carolina certainly kept Adrian Peterson bottled up for much of the day — at least on the ground. Peterson didn’t break 100 yards of rushing, but he made up for that in receiving yards with 162 yards in total. Cam Newton did awful things to the Vikings’ secondary including a big completion on fourth-and-fourteen that kept the Panthers’ final drive alive. Christian Ponder put in a good performance at quarterback for the Vikings, making no serious mistakes and keeping the chains moving on third down, especially in the second half.

Carolina looked snake-bit early in the game, with several ugly plays that the Vikings failed to fully capitalize on. Their first possession lasted exactly one play as a strip-sack handed the ball over to the Vikings deep in Panther territory. Middle linebacker E.J. Henderson hit Newton forcing the ball out, and Jared Allen came up with the loose ball. Allen also had a sack later in the half, which also forced Newton to fumble. Allen set a new team record with a sack in ten consecutive games.

Percy Harvin, on the other hand, had a much more up-and-down game. He scored a rushing touchdown, but was also stripped of the ball deep in Panthers’ territory, and also drew a 15-yard penalty for what looked like a fistfight with Carolina’s Captain Munnerlyn well off the playing field (actually at the Panthers’ bench).

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October 30, 2011

Rookie QB matchup

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:52

This is one of those games that could attract a lot more attention than the (respectively) 1-6 and 2-5 teams would normally be able to get. The biggest reason is the head-to-head matchup of two rookie quarterbacks, the Vikings’ Christian Ponder and the Panthers’ Cam Newton. Jim Souhan points out a few parallels between the two rookies:

When Cam Newton scores a touchdown, which is often, he rips open an imaginary shirt, imitating Superman.

When Christian Ponder threw his first NFL touchdown on Sunday, he ran down the field firing imaginary guns like the Shooter McGavin character from “Happy Gilmore.”

While one channels a hero and the other embraces a parody, Newton and Ponder, two rookie quarterbacks who will meet today in Charlotte, share an intriguing set of connections and similarities.

They worked out together this summer with St. Paul native and former Florida State star Chris Weinke. They were both selected in the first round of the 2011 draft. Their fathers tried out for the Dallas Cowboys in 1983. They might have the four best legs this side of Secretariat.

What might be most interesting about them is that they have the athletic ability to alter the way the quarterback position is played, yet seem determined to prove they can win games with their arms.

October 24, 2011

Vikings lose entertainingly to Packers, 33-27

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:48

Although the final numbers don’t show it (13 of 32 for 219 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INT), Christian Ponder had a pretty good game in his first NFL start. Rookies will make mistakes early on (and some players never stop making rookie mistakes), so coming out of the game with two touchdown passes and two interceptions is a good outing for a rookie quarterback. If nothing else, he provided a jolt of energy to a team that (in Jim Souhan’s wording) “the previous week played with all of the enthusiasm of guys in orange jumpsuits picking up roadside trash”.

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, however, didn’t make any mistakes worth mentioning. As the TV commentators put it, he was putting on a clinic during the first half, yet the scoreboard didn’t reflect how good he was, as the Packers were behind the Vikings at halftime 17-13.

Clint Starks at The Viking Age:

The Vikings secondary was without Chris Cook (incarcerated) and Antoine Winfield (injury) and many thought this unit would struggle against the high powered passing Packers offense and they did not disappoint. In typical Vikings fashion they also racked up their share of penalties. Purple were penalized 9 times for 91 yards. All of that said, the Vikings did make it close at the end with a couple defensive stops and decent play from Ponder. In the end, the Packers passing game gave way to their serviceable running game to ice the game.

Of course the big news from the Vikings standpoint was Christian Ponder getting his first career start and for the most part he looked decent. I have spent much energy criticizing Bill Musgrave but I must admit that he called a good game and put Ponder in some good positions to make some plays. Ponder did throw two picks (to Charles Woodson), which was to be expected, we knew there would be some growing pains with the rookie play caller. For the most part, this is a good start to Ponder’s career and there is much to build off of.

Dan Wiederer, Star Tribune:

The moment felt so hopeful, the play unfolding better than Christian Ponder could have ever envisioned. On the Vikings’ first snap Sunday, there was the rookie quarterback, in play action, shuffling left into open space.

Up the sideline, receiver Michael Jenkins froze Green Bay cornerback Tramon Williams with a devastating out-and-up move. So here came this pass — a perfect spiral to a wide-open target — pumping adrenaline into a downtrodden fan base.

This one completion, netting 72 yards and setting up a 2-yard touchdown toss from Ponder to Visanthe Shiancoe, felt incredibly significant.

Suddenly, the worries that existed about giving Ponder his first NFL start against the defending Super Bowl champions were obliterated by a roar that rippled the Teflon roof covering Mall of America Field.

Just like that, the Vikings’ advertisements of Ponder as their confident leader of the future seemed valid.

Update: Tom Pelissero and Judd Zulgad of 1500ESPN:

October 22, 2011

Yet another bit of bad news for Vikings fans

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:13

The Vikings were already hurting in the secondary, with cornerback Antoine Winfield probably out with a neck injury that’s been bothering him for the last two weeks, and safety Jamarca Sanford out with a concussion. Now, Tom Pelissero reports that the Vikings will be even weaker at cornerback tomorrow, as Chris Cook (who had been starting in place of Winfield) has been arrested on domestic assault charges:

The Minnesota Vikings’ second-year cornerback was being held without bail at Hennepin County Jail early Saturday morning on two domestic assault charges, according to jail records. A source confirmed it is the Vikings’ cornerback.

Cook, 24, was booked into the jail at 4:06 a.m. Saturday on two misdemeanor domestic assault charges. His first court appearance is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. Monday.

Early indications were that means Cook would remain in jail while the Vikings play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday afternoon.

And here is the most recent bit of doom-and-gloom from the ESPN1500 team (recorded before Cook’s arrest):

October 19, 2011

Vikings finally hand the keys to Christian Ponder

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:31

Most of the reaction to yesterday’s announcement that Christian Ponder will start the Vikings’ next game against the Green Bay Packers follows the same line: it’s about time. Ponder comes in with the team sitting at 1-5 and out of playoff contention. Green Bay, defending Super Bowl champs, are unbeaten this season. It’s a tall order for a rookie, but he clearly showed enough of a spark in last weekend’s disastrous outing against Chicago to get the nod to replace Donovan McNabb.

Dan Wiederer at the Star Tribune:

Truthfully, it was becoming awfully hard to find a risk-reward scenario that didn’t lead to Ponder replacing McNabb. As quarterback controversies go, this one sure seems clear-cut. For a Vikings squad whose 2011 season is going down in flames, the chance to develop a promising young quarterback far outweighs the value of possibly scratching out an extra two or three wins with an aging veteran whose contract will be up at season’s end.

It was quickly becoming a foregone conclusion that Ponder would start at some point this season. Frazier said as much Monday. So why delay the inevitable?

The Vikings head coach might say Wednesday he believes Ponder gives the Vikings the best chance to win now — this week and for the rest of 2011. But really, this is a prudent move designed to build toward a more promising future.

October 17, 2011

The Vikings’ litany of mistakes, miscues, and brain farts yesterday

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

Vikings stink up Soldier Field, losing 39-10 to the Bears

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:11

The difference between this loss and the earlier losses is that the Vikings were never in this game. Chicago jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back. The normally great first-half defence didn’t show up tonight, and the offence was its usual anaemic self.

The Vikings had done well to avoid injuries so far this season, but lost several players to injury over the course of the game, including safety Jamarca Sandford, offensive tackle Phil Loadholt, and centre John Sullivan. With two offensive line starters out, Donovan McNabb was running for his life back there.

On the good side of the ledger, after a quiet start, Jared Allen got a sack and stripped the ball from Jay Cutler. The Vikings turned that into 6 points on an Adrian Peterson run. Late in the game, Christian Ponder took over at quarterback for Donovan McNabb, and showed some nice situational awareness (avoiding the pass rush) and good accuracy and distance downfield. Other than that, there wasn’t much for Vikings fans to cheer.

After the game, coach Leslie Frazier was careful not to commit himself about who will start next Sunday’s game, but Andrew Kulha at Bleacher Reports is sure that we’ve seen the start of a new quarterback era:

It may be time for former Philadelphia Eagles star, former Washington Redskins mistake and current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Donovan McNabb to take his curtain call.

It’s been a great run for McNabb, but it’s probably best to stop digging while he still has a chance to get out of the hole that is the latter stages of his career.

Christopher Gates at the Daily Norseman agrees:

Statistically, if you look at Donovan McNabb’s line from Sunday night, it doesn’t look like he played all that badly. . .he only threw five incompletions on the evening, and put up 177 passing yards. However, as the fourth quarter started at Soldier Field on Sunday evening, Minnesota Vikings’ head coach Leslie Frazier decided that the time had finally come.

And, with that, the Christian Ponder era got underway in Minnesota.

Sure, by the time that Ponder got into the game, the Vikings only had five healthy offensive lineman. . .Phil Loadholt was out of the game with an (as of now) undisclosed injury, and John Sullivan suffered a concussion early in the second half. As the Vikings only had seven offensive linemen dressed on the evening, another injury probably would have seen Jim Kleinsasser lining up at tackle or guard. However, despite that, and despite spending most of the evening running for his life, Ponder was not sacked once in 18 pass attempts, and completed 10 of his passes for 99 yards in his quarter of work.

Update: Tom Pelissero sums up the brief (about a quarter) appearance of Christian Ponder:

Ponder made his NFL debut with 14 minutes, 43 seconds remaining in Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears, who led 39-10 and sacked starter Donovan McNabb five times.

“I don’t see it ending like this, as you say,” McNabb said. “But it’s tough. You’re one-and-five at this particular point. I felt like we did a lot of great things (Sunday). But I guess we’ll sit down to talk, but I still expect to be in there next week.”

Ponder was 9-of-17 passing for 99 yards (52.9%) and a 70.5 rating over two drives, both ending with fourth-down passes caught short of the first-down marker. But the rookie first-round picks’s skills were on display as he repeatedly escaped pressure and made several rhythm throws into tight windows.

He scrambled for 8 yards and a first down on his second snap. His first throw was a swing pass to Adrian Peterson for no gain and his second a touch pass to Percy Harvin for 20.

“I thought he did a good job under the circumstances,” Frazier said. “We’ll go back and look at the tape and fully evaluate it. But it seems like he moved around pretty good.”

Ponder was 5-of-10 passing for 58 yards on his first drive, which went 69 yards in 12 plays before a fourth-and-10 throw to Visanthe Shiancoe gained only 9, stalling the Vikings at the Chicago 12-yard line. The Vikings’ next drive went 40 yards in eight plays before stalling at the Chicago 30.

“I was very grateful for the opportunity that Coach let me go in,” Ponder said. “I thought I made some plays, thought I missed some plays, missed a couple throws. But I definitely had fun. It’s always hard to have fun when you’re losing that bad, but I was grateful and I definitely had fun.”

Update, the second: In his column at the Pioneer Press, Tom Powers suggests it’s time for a fire sale:

Vikings for sale! Vikings for sale! Cheap!

Not the team, but individual players. Hey, all you NFL general managers out there, get your very own Minnesota Vikings player. Take him home to play with your kids. Let him tend to the petunias in the garden. Have him wash the car. All we ask for is a seventh-round draft pick in return. And, of course, you take over paying his salary.

The NFL trade deadline almost always passes unnoticed. It’s not a big deal the way it is in other sports where there is a flurry of last-minute activity. The Vikings desperately need to change all that.

The 2011 deadline is Tuesday. It should be a very big deal. There ought to be balloons, parades and free hot dogs at Winter Park if Rick Spielman, the Vikings’ Invisible Man, can partially salvage a lost season by dumping veterans for draft picks. Even very low draft picks would be swell. So would a bag of Doritos.

October 10, 2011

Vikings finally keep a lead through an entire game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:00

The 2011 Minnesota Vikings had developed a terrible habit of only playing well in the first half of games, allowing teams to beat them in the second half. Last week’s game didn’t fit the pattern, as the team played terribly in both the first and the second half. This week started to look like the pattern had been re-established as the Vikings played an excellent ground game and took advantage of turnovers to jump out to a 28-3 lead at the half (time of possession favoured the Cardinals 2:1 at this point).

Cynics among the fan base were wondering how Arizona was going to come back from that deep a deficit — not if, but how. Well the cynics were wrong: the Cardinals couldn’t come back from being that far down, so the Vikings finally win their first game of the season. The pattern did hold true, though, as Arizona did outscore the Vikings in the second half, just not by enough.

Christopher Gates of the Daily Norseman:

The Vikings were paced by a huge first quarter, in which they tied a franchise record by scoring 28 points in the game’s first fifteen minutes. The only other time they’ve accomplished that was in a blowout victory over the Green Bay Packers on September 28, 1986. The four touchdowns in that game were all touchdown passes by Tommy Kramer. . .the four touchdowns the Vikings got today all came via the ground, with three from Adrian Peterson (from 4, 24, and 14 yards) and a 4-yard run by Donovan McNabb.

The defense keyed the fast start as well, as they were dominant in the first quarter of play. The Cardinals’ first 13 offensive plays consisted of three three-and-outs, two turnovers, another fumble that went out of bounds, and one completed pass. Jared Allen and Brian Robison each had two sacks on the afternoon, and JaMarca Sanford intercepted two Kevin Kolb passes on the afternoon, with Asher Allen throwing in a third.

As several people have noted, Sanford’s two picks now give him the same number of catches on the season as our putative number one receiver, Bernard Berrian (who was deactivated for this game). The other player on the hotseat, quarterback Donovan McNabb, didn’t make a strong case for himself either, completing only 10-of-21 for 169 yards which moves his passer rating to a very mediocre 80 for the season.

Jeremy Fowler at the Vikings Now blog:

But the spotlight is still placed directly on the passing game, which has struggled with or without the inactive Bernard Berrian. Take away McNabb’s 60-yard gain to receiver Devin Aromashodu midway through the third quarter — an impressive across-the-middle throw, to be sure — and McNabb was 9-of 21 for 109 yards.

He was 3-of-10 on third down for the day while routinely missing receivers short on short or intermediate routes — sometimes five or six yards short. Cardinals defenders dropped what should have been two easy interceptions. Percy Harvin, the Vikings’ top receiver, got two targets and caught one pass for 12 yards. “There is no go-to guy right now,” McNabb said. “We’re all still getting comfortable in this offense and working on each other’s timing and chemistry.”

Maybe Christian Ponder’s not ready, and that’s fine. But McNabb must improve the accuracy for the Vikings to survive the next two weeks entering the teeth of the NFC North schedule. Speaking of the schedule…

Dan Zinski at The Viking Age:

Much of the anxiety, expressed by Metrodome fans in the form of boos, was no doubt the lingering result of psychological trauma incurred during the previous three second half choke jobs – but a lot of it was due simply to the shaky play of McNabb. The quarterback once again showed a sometimes alarming lack of accuracy on his passes, and even his better passes were wobbly and not quite on-target. The big pass of the second half, a 60-yarder to Devin Aromashodu, looked like some kind of dying bird fluttering through the air before finally landing safely in the receiver’s hands. And even worse: an attempted short pass to Visanthe Shiancoe that landed five yards in front of the intended receiver, causing the fans to jeer, McNabb to laugh and Shiancoe to get into it with his quarterback on the sideline.

This week McNabb got away with his lame-duck passes, thanks to Adrian Peterson’s hard running and the defense’s uncharacteristic ball-hawking, but that doesn’t mean the McNabb problem has suddenly disappeared. Accuracy remains a big issue for this quarterback and I don’t see that reality changing any time soon. The Vikings were fortunate that this week they faced a quarterback, Kevin Kolb, who is possibly even worse than McNabb. The defense stepped up big and Peterson did his part – even though he once again found tough sledding in the second half – but you can’t expect that sort of performance every week. At some point you need your quarterback to contribute more than 169 yards on 48% passing. A win is great but it doesn’t erase the fact that the passing game is still not anywhere near effective enough for this team to compete consistently.

Does a win keep Berrian and McNabb afloat for another week?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

It must be bad if the home team is up 21 points and the fans in the stadium are still booing the starting quarterback. McNabb is a tough guy: he’s heard the boo-birds often enough in Philadelphia, but it must be hard to cope with this level of rejection at this stage of his career. Bernard Berrian was benched for this game and his replacement does more than enough to make a case for being his permanent replacement. Will this be the week that the team parts company with their under-productive number 1 receiver?

Tom Pelissero:

The Vikings raced to a 28-0 lead in the first 12½ minutes on Sunday in spite of McNabb, not because of him. They held on despite a remarkable series of misfires that drew boos and chants of “WE WANT PONDER!” from the first quarter to the fourth.

“I can’t worry about that,” McNabb said. “I don’t worry about it at all, because at the end of the day, they look up and they see a win.”

This win was all about a defense that was opportunistic and unrelenting, sacking Kevin Kolb four times and forcing four turnovers on a day top cornerback Antoine Winfield was sidelined with a neck strain.

The offense fizzled after first-quarter touchdown drives of 18, 24 and 25 yards set up by defense and special teams, plus a 73-yarder keyed by Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson’s 36-yard pass interference penalty. McNabb completed only 10 of 21 passes, nearly was intercepted twice and threw a handful of others into the ground.

October 9, 2011

Is this the beginning of the end for Bernard Berrian as a Viking?

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:56

Tom Pelissero has the story:

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Bernard Berrian was a surprise inactive for Sunday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals at the Metrodome.

Cornerback Antoine Winfield also was inactive, but that doesn’t come as a surprise given that he did not practice last week because of a neck injury. Chris Kluwe, who was bothered by a hamstring injury and missed two days of practice last week, will handle the punting duties for the 0-4 Vikings.

Berrian was not listed on the injury report during the week and although he has only two receptions this season, the move almost certainly comes as punishment for Berrian’s exchange on Twitter last Sunday with Rep. John Kriesel, R-Cottage Grove.

[. . .]

Frazier clearly was not pleased and made that clear on Monday.

“I have talked to Bernard and we do … matter of fact Bob (Hagan, the Vikings director of public relations) and some of our PR people actually talk with our team once we come to training camp,” Frazier said. “Just about social media and what our relationship should be with social media.

“It’s something we’ve talked about, something we’ll continue to deal with and talk about. Bernard kind of knows where we stand on that issue and we’ll move on from there. … We want to make sure that our focus is on football and trying to win football games. I think going forward he’ll handle things the right way.”

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